Interesting Article: Mossad's Fingerprints on a Murder in Tunisia

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When it comes to protecting Israel's national security, Mossad does not play nice. The Israeli spy agency, which has a long and bloody history of extrajudicial assassinations under its belt, is suspected of adding another in the slaying of a Hamas researcher on Dec. 15 in Tunisia.

The death of Mohammed al Zoari in a hail of gunfire in the coastal city of Sfax came at the zenith of a complex operation involving as many as eight Tunisian nationals and an unknown number of others, who Tunisian officials said were foreign agents. Although the hit carried the hallmarks of other Mossad operations, Israel has hinted at, but not acknowledged, its involvement.

“If someone was killed in Tunisia, he’s not likely to be a peace activist or a Nobel Prize candidate,” said Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman. “We will continue to do in the best possible way what we know how to do — that is to protect our interests.”

From the streets of Europe to the Middle East, Israel's agents time and again have found their mark, with their victims dispatched in novel ways, from bombs under beds to lone figures targeted on dark streets with silenced Beretta .22s. I’ve often wondered if somewhere inside the Mossad there is a secret office that mulls over plots from fiction novels and uses them to plan real-world missions.

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Targeted assassinations are a fact of life in the counterterrorism business. Certainly, a lone actor, even one who is part of a larger organization, has virtually no chance when facing a team dispatched by a nation state to kill him. Life isn’t fair in the dark world of terrorism. Often is the case that if you live by the sword, you will die by it.

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